The Brothers Karamazov (92 page)

“I’ve had enough of this. I won’t answer any more questions.”

“It is strange, though, that you have no recollection at all of where you can have dropped the rag.”

“Why don’t you order the square swept tomorrow? They may find it for you,” Mitya snorted. “And now, why don’t you leave me alone?” he said in a tired voice. “I can see you don’t believe what I’ve told you; in fact, you never believed a word I said. It’s my fault, not yours, though, I should never have trusted you in the first place. Why, oh why, did I degrade myself by revealing my secret to you? And you, you find it just too funny—I can see that by your eyes, you know! You in particular, prosecutor, have driven me to such extremes. So go and sing yourself a triumphant hymn, if you have the stomach for it. Ah, may you be damned, you torturers!”

He lowered his head and put his hands over his face. His questioners were silent. After a minute, Mitya raised his head and looked unseeing in their direction. He looked like a man already hopelessly doomed. He seemed mute and forlorn.

It was time, though, to conclude the preliminary investigation with the interrogation of the witnesses. By now it was already eight o’clock. The candles had been snuffed out a while before. Inspector Makarov and Kalganov, who during the interrogation had kept coming in and out of the room, got up and walked out again. Both the prosecutor and Examining Magistrate Nelyudov looked very pale and tired. It was a gray, bleak morning, the sky was overcast, and it was raining hard. Mitya gazed blankly toward the window.

“All right if I go and look out the window?” he asked suddenly.

“Please do—of course,” the examining magistrate said.

Mitya got up and went over to the window. The rain was pelting down hard against the greenish panes. The muddy road passed just under the window and farther away in the rainy mist stood the black shapes of the poor, unprepossessing wooden houses, looking even blacker and poorer than usual through the rain. Mitya remembered about “golden-haired Phoebus” and his plans to shoot himself when his first bright ray appeared. “I guess it would be easier to go through with it on a morning like this,” he thought. He suddenly smiled, waving his hand at his “torturers.”

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I am quite aware that it’s all over for me. But what about her? Tell me, I beg you—she won’t be ruined because of me, will she? For she had nothing to do with it at all; she was crazy last night when she cried that it was all her fault. She has absolutely nothing to do with it, nothing. I’ve been worrying about it all night while sitting here with you, so won’t you please tell me what you intend to do with her?”

“I assure you that you have nothing to worry about on that account,” the prosecutor replied quickly. “So far we have no reason whatsoever to bother the lady about whom you are so concerned. And I hope it remains that way as the case develops . . . Indeed, we will do everything within our power in that respect. Please put your mind at rest on that score.”

“I thank you for that, gentlemen! Let me tell you that I really knew all along that you were fair and honorable men, despite everything. You’ve taken a load off my mind! . . . Well, what are we going to do now? I am ready for it, whatever it may be.”

“We really must move quickly,” the prosecutor said. “We must start right away with the interrogation of the witnesses. And since the interrogation must take place in your presence, you . . .”

“But what about having some tea first?” Nelyudov interrupted him. “Don’t you think we’ve earned it?”

They decided to go downstairs on the chance that there would be tea already made, since, if Inspector Makarov was there, he certainly would be having some. Then they could help themselves to a cup and come back and carry on to the end. As for a proper breakfast “with something to go with it perhaps,” that would just have to wait until they could take a much longer break. At first Mitya declined Nelyudov’s friendly invitation to have a cup of tea too, but later he asked for some himself and drank it down greedily. He looked incredibly worn out and exhausted. It would seem that a man with a powerful constitution like his should have been able to weather a night of drinking, even one full of violent emotions. But now he could hardly sit up in his chair and at times things in the room started swaying and spinning before his eyes. “If it goes on like this, I’ll start talking to myself,” he thought.

Chapter 8: The Testimony Of The Witnesses. The Babe

THE INTERROGATION of the witnesses started. We will not, however, continue our account of the proceedings in such great detail as heretofore. We will pass over the little speech the examining magistrate made to each new witness about how it was his duty to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, and that he would have to repeat it all under oath later and, moreover, every witness would have to sign his present deposition. We shall point out, however, that the main interest of the interrogators was again centered on that same matter of the three thousand rubles—that is, whether it was three thousand or one-and-a-half thousand that Mitya had spent during his first spree at Mokroye a month before and, again, whether he had spent three or one-and-a-half thousand rubles the night before. Alas, all the statements of the witnesses clashed with Mitya’s contention; not one of them supported him; and some of the witnesses even introduced amazing new facts that all but refuted his recent claim once and for all.

The first witness to be interrogated was the innkeeper, Trifon Plastunov. As he stood before the interrogators he showed not the slightest fear, indeed, he had a grim air of outraged indignation against the accused, which, without any doubt, added weight and credibility to his testimony. He answered briefly, with restraint, waited for the interrogators to complete their questions before answering, and obviously thought out his replies. He testified in a firm voice, without hesitation, that Mitya, on his previous spree a month ago, could not possibly have spent less than three thousand rubles and that any of the villagers would confirm that they had heard Mr. Karamazov mention the figure of three thousand himself.

“You should have seen him tossing money to those gypsy girls! I’d say he threw out a good thousand on the gypsies alone.”

“I didn’t spend even five hundred on them,” Mitya commented gloomily, “although I admit I was too drunk to count the money at the time. I wish I had counted it . . .”

Mitya was now sitting, not at the table, but next to it, his back to the curtain. He listened mournfully to the depositions and his sad, tired expression seemed to say: “You can testify whatever you wish. I don’t care anymore.”

“I say you spent more than a thousand on them, Mr. Karamazov,” Trifon brushed off Mitya’s protest with great assurance. “You were just tossing money about for no reason and they were picking it up. You know those gypsies—they’re all thievish and crooked, a lot of horse thieves . . . They’ve been driven out of the district since then, or they could have testified themselves how much money they got out of you. And I myself saw the money in your hands—although it’s a fact that you didn’t give it to me to count, I could tell just by the size of the bundle that there was much more than fifteen hundred rubles there . . . Fifteen hundred rubles, indeed! I’ve seen money in my time. I know what it looks like. I can tell.”

As to the sum spent the previous night, Trifon testified that the first thing Mitya had done upon his arrival was to announce to him that he had brought three thousand rubles like the last time.

“Come, come, Trifon, are you really so sure I told you I had three thousand with me?” Mitya tried to object.

“That’s exactly what you said, Mr. Karamazov, and Andrei was there when you said it. Andrei is still here, so you can ask him and see what he says. And in there, in the other room, when you were going around pouring drinks for the singers and dancers, you even said that it was the sixth thousand you were going through here. You must have meant, I guess, including the three you spent here the time before. I know Stepan heard it, and Semyon did too. And I even remember that Mr. Kalganov was standing next to you when you said it, so perhaps he remembers it too . . .”

The prosecutor and the examining magistrate were very much impressed by this testimony about the sixth thousand. They liked this new formulation very much: three and three makes six, so he’d spent three thousand the first time and three again the second time, adding up to six. Everything seemed perfectly clear now.

Then they verified Trifon’s testimony by calling in the men he had mentioned: the two villagers Semyon and Stepan, Andrei the coachman, and Kalganov. The two villagers and Andrei confirmed unhesitatingly what Trifon had said. Andrei also told them how Dmitry had asked him during the drive where Andrei thought he, Dmitry Karamazov, would go after he died, to hell or to heaven, and whether he thought they would forgive him in the other world. The prosecutor, who considered himself a very profound psychologist, listened to this with a subtle little smile and demanded that the transcription of Andrei’s testimony, including Mitya’s question, be added to “the dossier.”

When they called him in, Kalganov complied reluctantly, looked sullen and peevish, and spoke to the prosecutor and the examining magistrate as if he were seeing them for the first time in his life, although in fact they were old acquaintances whom he met almost every day. He began by saying that he neither knew anything “of all this,” nor had any wish to know. But he had heard about “the sixth thousand” and admitted that he had been standing next to Mitya when Mitya said it. As to the amount of money Mitya had on him, Kalganov refused to make an estimate: “I don’t know how much there was.” He confirmed that the Poles had cheated at cards. He also confirmed reluctantly, and only after insistent questioning, that, after the Poles had been turned out, Mitya’s standing with Grushenka had improved dramatically and she herself had let him understand that she loved him. Of Grushenka, Kalganov spoke with restraint and considerable respect, as if she were a lady of the best society, and he referred to her all the time as Miss Svetlov. Despite Kalganov’s obvious distaste at being interrogated, the prosecutor insisted on questioning him at great length, and it was from him that he obtained all the elements that made up what can be described as Mitya’s “romance” during that night. Mitya never once intervened in Kalganov’s testimony. When he was at last excused, Kalganov walked away in unconcealed indignation.

The Poles were examined too. Although they had gone to bed in the little room in which they had locked themselves, they had not gone to sleep and, when they heard the authorities arrive, they quickly got up and dressed, for they expected to be called too. They came in looking dignified, although also rather apprehensive. The leader of the two, that is, the little Pole, turned out to be a retired civil servant of the twelfth class, who had served in Siberia as a veterinarian. His name was Musijalowicz. As to Wrublewski, he turned out to be a dentist in private practice.

Although it was Examining Magistrate Nelyudov who questioned them, the Poles, in their ignorance, assumed from the moment they entered the room that Inspector Makarov was the highest-ranking official and therefore addressed their answers to him, calling him “Pan Colonel.” It was only after Makarov himself had told them repeatedly that they must address the official who was interrogating them directly and not him that the Poles finally understood. It turned out that their Russian was quite good, apart, perhaps, from the mispronunciation of certain words, and it was even grammatical. When asked about his relations with Grushenka, past and present, Pan Musijalowicz began to speak in a proud and heated tone, which made Mitya lose his temper at once. He shouted that he was not going to allow “this crook” to speak like that in his presence. The Pole immediately drew attention to the word “crook” and demanded that it be entered in the record. This made Mitya fly into a rage again.

“Yes, that’s exactly what you are—a damned crook! Go on, write it down if you want to! Whether you do or not, he is still a crook!” Mitya shouted.

Nelyudov had it put in the record, but he displayed considerable tact in dealing with the unpleasant situation: he reprimanded Mitya sternly for his disorderly conduct, but he did not pursue this line of questioning about the romantic aspects of the evening and instead passed quickly on to the essential matter—Mitya’s offer of money to Musijalowicz when they went out to the little room. The interrogators were extremely interested to hear that Mitya had offered the Pole three thousand rubles—seven hundred rubles down, the balance of twenty-three hundred to be paid in town in the morning. Musijalowicz testified that, in promising to pay him the balance, Mitya had sworn, giving him his word of honor, that he did not have the whole sum with him here in Mokroye but that he had the money in town. At first Mitya heatedly denied that he had definitely promised to pay the balance in town, but then Wrublewski confirmed the testimony of his fellow Pole and, after thinking hard for a minute, Mitya frowned and finally agreed that the Poles must be right after all, that he had been very excited at the time and could very well have promised them that sum. The prosecutor literally pounced on that statement. According to him, the preliminary investigation clearly established the possibility (as, indeed, was later accepted) that half or a certain portion of the three thousand rubles that had fallen into Mitya’s hands might be hidden somewhere in town, or even perhaps in Mokroye, and this disposed of a fact that had been causing the prosecution some difficulty—namely, that Mitya had only eight hundred rubles in his possession. Up till then this had been the only point, albeit not a very important one, in Mitya’s favor, and now it was disposed of too!

The prosecutor immediately asked Mitya where he had expected to get the twenty-three hundred rubles he had promised the Poles on his honor when, according to his present statement, he had only fifteen hundred rubles in the first place. To that Mitya replied, without the slightest hesitation, that, instead of the money, he would have offered “that lousy Pole” a formal deed certifying his rights to the Chermashnya estate that he had previously offered to Mrs. Khokhlakov and Samsonov. The prosecutor merely snorted sarcastically at Mitya’s “innocence” if he believed that he “could get away with that.”